He was promoted to organize Communist guerrilla movements in northern China from a headquarters in Tianjin in 1928, but he was arrested and imprisoned by Kuomintang police in 1931.

Bo was one of a select group of powerful veterans centred on Deng who were informally known as the "Eight Immortals" for their political longevity and for the vast influence they commanded during the 1980s and 1990s.

His father was a craftsman who produced paper, but the family was so poor that they were forced to drown one of Bo's newborn brothers because they were not wealthy enough to feed him.

While imprisoned in a correctional facility for military personnel in Beijing, Bo held a formal Party title and was responsible for spreading communism and organizing communist activities in the prison.

He held a number of positions within the Party that recognized his administrative authority over much of these areas, and his prestige and influence grew throughout the period of the war.

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Bo was quickly identified as a "capitalist roader" and purged as one of the "61 Renegades"—Party members who had spent time in Kuomintang prisons.

[10] Jiang Qing produced the anti-communist statement that Bo had signed in 1937 with the Kuomintang in order to secure his release from prison, accusing him of "betraying the party" and making him an easy target for persecution.

Bo was paraded through the stadium with an iron plaque around his neck describing his "crimes", but he was more defiant than most victims persecuted by Red Guards, and demanded (unsuccessfully) to speak in his own defence.

Bo's insistence that he was a loyal Communist Party member and that Mao had approved all of his actions created a chaotic atmosphere, and the rally was cancelled after three minutes.

Because of Bo's stubborn refusal to break down and "confess" to these charges, he was subjected to various means of torture throughout 1966 and 1967, during which he was routinely beaten and systematically deprived of food, water and sleep.

[1] Bo's children were jailed or sent to the countryside, and his wife died in captivity (she was reportedly beaten to death by Red Guards,[1][8] but they claimed that she committed suicide).

The company's executives answered that two was the exact number they wanted at this particular time, because their production was based on customer orders and anything more than necessary would be a waste of resources.

After this visit to Boeing, Bo became much more critical of the Chinese practice of a planned economy, pointing out that excesses of production were in fact a waste of resources.

[1] Even after completely retiring during the 1990s, his status meant that he remained an influential figure who still pulled strings behind the scenes and could make or unmake party officials.

Bo Xilai eventually rose to become China's commerce minister; and, later, the Communist Party Committee Secretary of Chongqing, but his political career ended with the 2012 Wang Lijun scandal.

His daughter became an American citizen and resides in the U.S.[citation needed] Bo lived long enough to be the oldest member of the Communist Party in China by the end of his life.